---
title: "What can you do with a philosophy degree?"
description: "14 careers philosophy graduates commonly move into, with BLS median pay, projected growth and entry requirements for each."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors/philosophy"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T07:20:09.337Z"
---

# What can you do with a philosophy degree?

**What the degree involves:** Logic, ethics, metaphysics, and close reading of arguments you have to take apart.

Philosophy has no job attached to it, which is exactly why its graduates are scattered so widely. What the degree actually trains is argument, close reading and writing under scrutiny, and the destinations below are the places employers pay for that, with law the most common single route out.

14 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 2 of 14 have a master's or a doctoral or professional degree as their BLS typical entry education, and 13 of 14 are projected to grow. A major is a body of study, not a job assignment: these are destinations of people who took the degree, not what the degree entitles anyone to.

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected change | Openings a year | Typical entry education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Paralegal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paralegal) | $62,890 | +0.2% | 39,300 | Associate's |
| 2 | Writer and Author | $76,910 | +3.6% | 13,400 | Bachelor's |
| 3 | Editor | $77,920 | +0.6% | 9,800 | Bachelor's |
| 4 | Technical Writer | $90,390 | +0.9% | 4,500 | Bachelor's |
| 5 | [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) | $75,940 | +6.2% | 81,800 | Bachelor's |
| 6 | [Market Research Analyst and Marketing Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/market-research-analyst-and-marketing-specialist) | $78,760 | +6.7% | 87,200 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) | $74,750 | +4.8% | 27,600 | Bachelor's |
| 8 | [Compliance Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compliance-officer) | $80,730 | +3.0% | 33,300 | Bachelor's |
| 9 | [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) | $101,860 | +8.8% | 98,100 | Bachelor's |
| 10 | [High School Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/high-school-teacher) | $72,040 | -1.6% | 66,200 | Bachelor's |
| 11 | Clergy | $60,810 | +1.0% | 23,000 | Bachelor's |
| 12 | Arbitrator, Mediator, and Conciliator | $75,530 | +4.3% | 300 | Bachelor's |
| 13 | [Lawyer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/lawyer) | $159,670 | +4.1% | 31,500 | Doctorate (graduate study) |
| 14 | Philosophy and Religion Teacher, Postsecondary | $80,260 | +0.7% | 2,000 | Doctorate (graduate study) |

Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Projected change, annual openings and typical entry education are BLS Employment Projections. Occupation descriptions are O\*NET. Nothing on this page is estimated and no figure is generated by an AI model.

Full record for any row, including wage percentiles and state-level pay: https://nuecareer.com/careers/{slug} or https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/{slug}. Other majors: https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology